The rewards offered by programs like Petro-Points change frequently. This article lists the options in January 2014 and points out which ones earn you the most $$$ equivalent for your points. We had racked up quite a pile of Petro-Points so after Christmas I decided to figure out the best way to use them especially since the points we’ve earned in other programs have de-valued suddenly.
UPDATE: You may prefer to read the new review of the best use of Petro-Points for March 2016 by clicking on this sentence.
For the Impatient Reader: If you read (or scroll) far enough, you’ll discover I’ve summarized the value in $ per 1000 points for various options in a table.
One Very Popular Reward Selected by People Who Collect Petro-Points
You can probably guess that most people use their Petro-Points to reduce the cost of the gas they’re buying. They may or may not realize they have four choices when doing so.
They can use points to buy
- a “Fuel Savings Rewards Card” which reduces the price paid per litre by 5 cents
- a “Fuel Savings Rewards Plus Card” which reduces the price paid per litre by 5 cents, and which you can use to earn more savings at a rate of 5 cents per litre for each dollar spent on lottery products or alcoholic beverages at participating locations
- a “Preferred Price Card” which reduces the price paid per litre by 10 cents
- a “Petro-Canada Gift Card” which is basically cash you can apply against your purchase
These cards are only useful when filling up at a Petro-Canada gas station not at a competitor.
Why Would People Get a Petro-Canada “Save X Cents a Litre Card” worth $25 Instead of a $25 Gift Card?
At first glance, I couldn’t believe anyone would get a “Fuel Savings Rewards Card” or a “Preferred Price Card.” Why would I want to have to go the station several times to get all of my savings instead of just getting a gift card and saving all of the money immediately?
I could see why Petro-Canada would push the “cents per litre” cards, though. They want you to keep coming back. Especially since you might decide to also buy a pack of smokes or a car wash.
The answer, I discovered, is that often you save more money if you buy the “cents per litre” cards. You can save even more when they sell them at a discount which happens fairly often.
Today, January 10, 2014, here are the offers on the Petro-Points website:
| Card | Number of Points | Saving | Value | Dollars of value per 1000 points |
| Fuel Savings Reward | 12 000 to buy a card in store, 11 000 to reload a card online |
5 cents per litre for 200 L | $10 | $0.83 or 0.91 |
| Fuel Savings Reward Plus | 11 000 | 5 cents per litre for 200L | $10 | $0.91 |
| Preferred Price Card | 40 000 , 80 000 , 160 000 | 10 cents per litre for 250L | $25 , $50 , $100 | $0.625, 0.625, 0.625 |
| Petro-Canada Gift Card | 40 000 , 80 000 , 160 000 | $25 , $50 , $100 | $25, $50, $100 | $0.625, 0.625, 0.625 |
You can see that today the Fuel Savings Reward card or the Fuel Savings Reward Plus card offer the best value per point. Those values are often even higher due to various promotions.
Another Very Popular Points Purchase: A Car Wash
Car Washes are another popular way drivers spend Petro-Points.
According to the online site, you can buy a SuperWorks Car Wash for 8 000 points. I’ll have to try to check the retail price for that wash the next time I fill up. I’m not even sure if the price is the same at all sites or not.
What’s the Best Value for Redeeming Petro-Points for Something Other than Petro-Canada Products
Unlike some rewards programs (Air Miles I’m looking at you!) the Petro-Points website is bursting with various offers to redeem your points. Here I’ll review them in the order I encounter them.
Using Petro-Points at Best Buy
You can redeem Petro-Points for Best Buy cards in two ways. One offers a much better deal than the other.
The best buy is Best Buy e-Gift Cards.
They can be used online or in store. You must redeem points for these e-Gift cards online. The “card” is emailed to you where you can print it off to take to the store (or just copy the information to use it online.) There is no real “card.”
You can get Best Buy e-Gift cards in denominations of $10, 25, 50, 100, 250, and 500.
All of the e-Gift cards yield the same value of $0.83 per 1000 Petro-Points.
The worst choice for Best Buy is the Best Buy gift card. Its dollars of value per 1000 points is only $0.50.
Using Petro-Points for CAA Membership and CAA Dollars Gives the Highest Dollar Value Per 1000 Points
You can redeem 60 000 Petro-Points to get a CAA Basic membership. In southern Ontario, a basic CAA membership costs $69. The dollar value per 1000 points is therefore 1.15. That’s the highest value offered on the site at the time this was written in January 2014.
You can also exchange 1 000 Petro Points for one CAA dollar. That means the dollar value per 1000 points is 1 dollar. That’s the second highest value offered on the site at the time this was written in January 2014.
By registering your CAA membership number online on the Petro-Points site, you also earn 20% more points on every purchase you make a Petro-Canada if you swipe your Petro-Points card or use a Petro-Points linked credit card.
Other Ways to Spend Your Petro-Points
Digital Media
You can use points to buy music, movies, TV shows, eBooks and Audiobooks, but only from a list offered on the Petro-Points website.
Examples of movies include
- Superman, Man of Steel
- the Hobbit, Part 1
- the Hangover, Part 3
- Pacific Rim
Examples of songs include
- Roar
- Wrecking Ball
- What Do U Want
- The Monster
- Demons
- Counting Stars
Individual songs cost 1 815 points
Music albums seem to vary considerably. Prices include 4 200; 8 385; 15 405; 16 800; 18 201; 19 605; 21 000; etc. Johnny Reid’s A Christmas Gift to You album is 16 800 Petro-Points.
TV Shows include the usual suspects. A few examples are:
- Walking Dead
- Homeland
- Modern Family
- Glee
The prices vary again. The Complete 4th season of Walking Dead is 42 060 points. The Complete 3rd Season of Glee is 50 985 points.
The eBooks I looked at were published in Adobe Epub format which is compatible with Windows, Mac and most mobile devices.
Examples of eBooks include
- The Bone Season
- The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger
- The Things They Carried
- William Shakespeare’s Star Wars
The prices vary. Star Wars is 19 065 points. The Box is 24 165 points.
I find it humorous that the permissions state: “reading aloud not allowed.” Does it count if just your lips move?
They also have Audiobooks which presumably you can read aloud. The ones I checked were in OverDriver MP3 format, compatible with iTunes, Android and Windows Media Player.
Examples include
- The Road
- Steve Jobs
- Catching Fire
- Executive Power
- The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge
The prices vary. The Great Bridge is 63 735 points. Catching Fire is 35 655 points.
Itravel2000.com Rewards
You can earn Petro-Points if you book a trip on itravel2000.com. You would earn 10 points for every $1 you spend on travel. You could double the points if you book the trip using the CIBC Petro-Points MasterCard.
You can also use Petro-Points to pay for travel.
10 000 points pays for $10 at iTravel2000.com. That’s a dollar value per 1000 points of $1.
That ties it for second best value with the CAA dollar offer. Read all of the terms and conditions closely though! They aren’t simple and they might not be acceptable.
Gift Cards
As you can see in the following examples, all of the gift cards are sold at a dollar value per 1000 points of $0.50. This makes them the worst choice from a dollar value viewpoint.
For 20 000 points you can get a $10 card for
- A&W
For 30 000 points you can get a $15 card for
- iTunes
- Subway
For 40 000 points you can get a $20 card for
- XBox
- Sony
- Sir Corp Restaurants
For 50 000 points you can get a $25 card for
- iTunes
- Cineplex
- Chapters Indigo
- XBox
- Future Shop
- Best Buy
- Empire Theatres
- Cinemas Guzzo
- HMV
- Sony
- Home Depot
- Hudson’s Bay
- RONA
- Sears
- La Senza
- Mark’s Work Wearhouse
- Toys R Us
- Shoppers Drug Mart
- Bass Pro Shops
- Forzani SportChek
- the Keg Steakhouse & Bar
- Cara Foods
- Boston Pizza
- Red Lobster
- East Side Mario’s
- Earl’s
- Subway
- A&W
- White Spot
- Pizza Pizza
- Brewsters
- St. Hubert
For 80 000 points you can get a $40 gift card for
- XBox
For 100 000 points you can get a $50 gift card for
- Bass Pro Shops
- Golf Town
- Forzani SportChek
- Home Depot
- Hudson’s Bay
- RONA
- Sears
- La Senza
- Mark’s Work Wearhouse
- Shoppers Drug Mart
- iTunes
- Cineplex
- Chapters Indigo
- Future Shop
- Best Buy
- Cinemas Guzzo
- Sony
- the Keg Steakhouse & Bar
- Cara Foods
- Boston Pizza
- Sir Corp Restaurants
- East Side Mario’s
- Earl’s
- Moxies
- White Spot
- Brewsters
- St. Hubert
For 200 000 points you can get a $100 gift card for
- Future Shop
- Best Buy
- Home Depot
- Sears
- the Keg Steakhouse & Bar
What Is the Best Way to Use My Petro-Points to Maximize Their Dollar Value?
As promised, here’s a summary table of your choices, as of January 2014, for redeeming Petro-Points. Your mileage may vary. (That’s a little “Retail” quip for you non-pump-jockeys out there.)
| Reward | $ value per 1000 points, in $ |
| CAA Basic Membership | 1.15 |
| CAA Dollars | 1.00 |
| itravel2000.com Dollars (read terms and details carefully!) |
1.00 |
| Fuel Savings Reward Card redeemed online | 0.91 |
| Fuel Savings Reward Plus Card redeemed online | 0.91 |
| Fuel Savings Reward Card at the station | 0.83 |
| Fuel Savings Reward Plus Card at the station | 0.83 |
| Best Buy eGift Cards | 0.83 |
| Single SuperWorks Car Wash Pass (Costs 8000 points) |
??? |
| Preferred Price Card (save 10 cents per litre) |
0.625 |
| Petro-Canada Gift Card | 0.625 |
| Gift Cards for a Wide Variety of Stores, Services and Restaurants | 0.50 |
| Digital Media (Varies by selection and by what “regular retail price” you use per selection) |
??? |
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Join In
Do you buy gas at Petro-Canada and collect Petro-Points? Or are you still furious with Trudeau, er, Pierre Elliott Trudeau? Have you redeemed any Petro-Points and if so, for what? Please share your views with a comment.